Smoking is cool!

Lets face it smoking is cool! Why else would otherwise rational intelligent human beings purposefully and knowingly inhale toxic addictive poisonous smoke for the pure enjoyment of the experience? In the day and age we live in with all the advertisements and government statistics telling us how we are destroying our health and ruining our lives if we smoke then surely there is no reason for anyone with half a brain cell to start smoking.


If that is the case then why do so many teenagers start smoking in the first place, (I am not implying for one moment that it is only teenagers who smoke but this as far as I can decipher is the age at which most people either try or start to smoke). I expect that if I asked the question “why do teenagers start smoking?” to most people in the street I would get three main responses, peer pressure, stress, and appearance (ie because it looks cool!). When it comes to peer pressure I can honestly say that anytime I decided to smoke while in my teens, it was never once due to other people pressuring me or bullying me into it, and I think I can say with a high level of assurance that none of my friends from school would say that they had smoked for those reasons either.


So if teenagers don’t start smoking because of peer pressure then obviously its due to them feeling stressed right? And we all know that smoking makes us less stressed (this is a complete lie of course, scientifically it does the opposite and the only reason people who have smoked for years find it a stress relief is because it is a comfort, and so if you have not smoked before it will not have and stress relieving effects). I can say without a doubt in my mind that a teenager who starts smoking will increase their stress levels considerably. I have a vivid memory of my older sister performing a precarious balancing act at the top of the stairs in our house, half her torso out the window in a vain attempt to disguise the fact that she was having a cigarette. This sort of behaviour along side, incessant incense burning, copious quantities of chewing gum, excessive hand washing and wearing enough body spray to suffocate a rhino (I must point out that I am not in any way insinuating that my sister was guilty of these behaviours I believe she drew the line at hanging out the window, just in case your reading this.) in order to hid the fact that you are smoking from the parental units can in no way be conducive to a less stressful life.


The third reason most people will assume teenagers start smoking for is ‘to look cool’, which to an extent is true, its rebellious especially now we are being told its illegal in most places and if your under 18. If you are smoking underage you are being cool, you are being ‘bad’ and teenagers love this feeling. But despite all this the overwhelming response you will get if you actually ask a teenager why they smoke will be ‘just coz’! and that is the sad truth of it. We smoke because we do, no rational behind it, no social, psychological or scientific reason we just do and that is that.